One Missed Call
by Rookiek13
Summary: Months without word leads to an investigation in Nibelheim. An empty mansion, a monster, and a missing child later, Veld needs to solve the mystery. What happened inside Shinra manor?


At first they just assumed that the lack of contact was just due to winter weather. Cell service in Nibelheim was spotty at the best of times, and it wasn't unheard of for the land lines to go out from the snow. It took until April for anyone to realize that something was amiss, and the trail was long cold.

The mansion in Nibelheim was long abandoned. His men had located two bodies. The first was in the lab, next to a shattered specimen tank. The body was too badly decayed – and partially eaten – for immediate identification, but personal effects on and around it indicated that it might be Professor Hojo. The second body was found in the upstairs study, partially mummified and clearly female, likely Lucrecia. Outside of the study was the dismembered remains of a two headed monster.

The only sign of Sephiroth, age 6, were the small, bloody footprints leaving the study and fading out somewhere near the staircase. And Vincent... Veld frowned at the phone is his grasp. There was no sign of his Turk, save for his phone. No blood. No indication that he was present at all. The phone was in a room near the lab, its screen flashing. 1 missed call.

It tormented him. There was a story here, a thousand pieces of a puzzle with no box and no way of knowing if all the pieces were present. His men were hard at work, but it could be months before they had any answers. If only forensic testing was as fast as it was on television.

Pensively, he surveyed the scene. The hallway was a mess. The sturdy, antique furniture had been thrown aside like a child's toy. The plaster walls were cracked and dented where the furniture had struck and splintered. And then there were the claw marks.

The longest was fifteen inches long and four inches deep, penetrating the dated plaster entirely. Veld could fit three fingers between each parallel gash. Whatever had created them must have been huge. Even the Nibel bear didn't get that big.

Nyugen was crouched over the remains of the two headed monster, muttering under her breath and scribbling in her notepad. Already she had assembled a rough sketch of what the creature might have looked like while alive and whole, the margins of the page filled with measurements.

"Not a pretty sight." She murmured, "I hope I never run into the thing that did this."

"You're certain it wasn't just pulled apart postmortem?"

"I can't be certain of anything without further testing. But the coloration and shape of the bone here..." she gestured at the splintered edges of the limb in front of her, "suggests that it was at least perimortem. Besides, this thing doesn't even have claws. Certainly not ones that could penetrate a wall like that."

Upreti's report was pretty much the same. The corpse was probably the professor, but without a proper autopsy, he couldn't be certain. If they could even manage a proper autopsy with the state of the remains.

"Probably eaten postmortem." was all he could say, "since it looks like something was down here for a while. Long enough to get hungry, anyway."

A broad sweep of his arm indicated the lab, with it's broken glass and smashed machinery, and the questionable detritus littering the floor.

Azikiwe's return heralded more information. Before she had even crossed the threshold, she proclaimed, "The kid is alive."

That was the good news. The bad news, she continued, was that the family fostering him had fled Nibelheim.

"I couldn't get much out of the townspeople besides 'we try to stay out of Shinra affairs', but the Strife family found him out on the mountain after yuletide. They left town last month. Claimed they were being stalked by a monster. The town claims the family is cursed."

"Any news on Vincent?"

The woman shook her head, "No one has seen him since October. Lucretia and Hojo came into town to buy supplies just before the weather turned, and Sephiroth was seen playing in the yard after the first snow."

October... That was when the first voicemail was left on Vincent's phone. Unbidden, the messages played through his mind.

 _"Vincent. Where did you go? Mom won't come out of her room. I think she's crying. There was a loud noise last night. It woke me up."_

 _"Vincent. Mom and dad are fighting. They won't tell me why. Come back soon and tell them to make up."_

 _"You've been gone a long time. Mom and dad aren't talking to each other anymore. They stay in the labs all day. I'm lonely."_

 _"Mom and Hojo are fighting again. He keeps making her cry. Tell your boss to let you come back soon."_

 _"There were screams downstairs. Mom barricaded the secret door. She wants to leave, but there's too much snow. She won't tell me where Hojo is."_

 _"What do I do? It hurt mom!"_

 _"I'm scared. Mom put the desk in front of the door, but it won't go away and now she won't wake up."_

 _The sounds of a child crying, the splinter of wood, and the roar of a monster._

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Too much time had passed. Could they find this Strife family? A month was a long time when someone was fleeing something, even if that something was paranoia. Where the fuck was Vincent?

"Good work. Head down to the labs and tell Upreti to start pulling anything he can find dating back to October. I'll recall Williams and Shina and see if they can track down our wayward Strifes."

It just kept getting worse and worse. Two of Shinra's most promising scientists dead, a valuable Shinra asset was missing, perhaps being chased by a monster, and his Turk was nowhere to be found.

One missed call.

One-

-missed-

-call.

The growing horror dawned on him slowly.

If the occupants of the house were dead and Vincent was missing, then _who or what had been checking his phone_?


End file.
